I feel full of shame that I hadn’t gone to Bistrot La Minette earlier. I’ve passed by it dozens of times. It’s right across the street from Beau Monde. I always saw it and said to myself, hmm, I wonder if that place is any good. I just had no idea that it was an authentic French bistro and that it would be so darn good. Maybe I was afraid of French food. I just don’t know. But I’ve finally righted my wrong. So they do a prix fixe on sundays, $29(!) for four courses, and the menu changes weekly. And man, it was stupendous.
There are some cute tables outside and when you go in, it immediately feels like you’re in Paris. It really is quite transformative. What do we start with? Baguette! So good and served with the most delicious salted butter.
Here’s the amuse bouche – rillet on a little mini crostini.
Our first official course was the Soupe Parmentier. It was a winter root vegetable soup with fried leeks, butter-roasted chestnuts, and parsley oil. This was so velvety smooth and rooty. It definitely is made with roots, but nothing was overly bitter. The chestnuts were so good! I wish there had been more of them!
Next up was the Grillé au Cantal. It was a hunk of breaded and fried Cantal cheese with cauliflower and haricots verts in a lemon vinaigrette. It was like cheese tempura! It was a bit on the overly crunchy side, but who doesn’t like fried cheese!
The main entree was the Bœuf Bourguignon. You know what this is, it’s a beef stew with mushrooms, lardons, pearl onions, and potatoes dauphine. This stew had an intense flavor and the meat was tender and juicy. My favorite thing about this were the potatoes dauphine! They like deep fried mashed potato balls! So the puffed outside is a little crispity but the potato on the inside is whipped and creamy. It was so awesome.
And finally, for dessert, the Tarte au Citron et son Sorbet Cassis. It was a super duper lemony tart with a cassis sorbet. The whole thing was great, especially the cassis sorbet. It was so much food! And it was all delicious! We were both absolutely crazy about it. The service was also excellent, from our extremely blond server. He would have looked extremely at home in a Russian figure skating program. Early on when we first got there, which was like early bird time, it was pretty much deserted. But later in the night, we were happy to see lots more people show up. And you should show up too!

I love me some Kanella, but hadn’t been there in awhile. Well, it was time to change all that. Here’s their houmous with pita. Damn y’all, this is so good. The houmous is smooth and creamy and zippy with just enough bite. The pita slices are warm and toasty and I love the fresh veggies that come with it. And it’s a nice healthy portion of it.
Here is the grilled halloumi and lounza sandwich. The halloumi is the cheese and lounza is ham. So it’s a cypriot style ham and cheese sandwich. It was filled with some veggies and served on this amazing grainy bread with all kinds of seeds all over it. I’m usually turned off by really healthy and grainy breads with visible nuts and seeds, but this was great.
The same bread came as toast with my Shaksouka. It is two poached eggs and a cumin scented tomato and pepper stew. Oh this thing is so amazing! It’s an amazing meal, any time of the day. The place was pretty crowded even though we were only seated a little before they technically closed for lunch. The service was friendly, but nothing comes out very fast. But that’s ok. This place is totally worth the wait!

It felt like I hadn’t eaten out in along time. And in a way, it was true. After all the holiday meals with family and post-holiday happenings that were not conducive for dining out, we finally had to escape. We went to Saffron again. I do not remember the menu looking this nice. Maybe I just didn’t pay attention last time.Although their plain naan is fine, I wanted to try something truly different. This is the spinach and cheese naan, and frankly, this is now my favorite kind of naan. Fresh spinach and ooey gooey mozzarella. This is seriously good.
J’s favorite dish, the kadai paneer makhani. Homemade cheese with green bell peppers and onions in a sweet and tangy tomato based sauce. I have to agree, this dish is pretty amazing.
I got the chicken korma because it’s one of those dishes I like to try at any and all indian restaurants. It’s really good at Saffron, but perhaps a bit on the safe side. They use really good quality ingredients here. And they don’t skimp with the rice either. They’ll bring out piles of it for you, if you ask.
Mango lassi and the rice pudding. I think this is the rice pudding they kept on trying to push on us last time. Both are good. But since I’m not a dessert person, I don’t really know. And on a thursday night, this place was still hopping. That makes me happy.